MONMOUTH COUNTY — The U.S. Naval Weapons Station Earle in Monmouth County is home to the only facility in the world that allows for full-scale oil spill response testing and research.

Such research as been credited by federal officials with generating most of what experts know about dealing with disasters such as BP’s Deepwater Horizon spill in the Gulf of Mexico

But the wave pool at the Oil and Hazardous Materials Simulated Environmental Test Tank, or OHMSETT, has been out of commission for about a month and will remain inoperable for several more weeks because of multiple leaks, federal and facility authorities said.

"I believe that the fact that this facility is inoperable during the nation’s largest oil spill is indicative of a complacency and lack of investment in oil spill response technologies," U.S. Sen. Robert Menendez (D-N.J.) wrote in a letter today to Interior Secretary Ken Salazar.

The senator learned the facility was closed when he tried to visit the site last week.

"The industry and even the government has substantially invested in new technologies to drill in deeper water and deeper into the earth, but little has been invested in safety or oil spill response and clean-up — apparently not even enough to keep water in OHMSETT’s testing tank," Menendez said in his letter.

Matthew Quinney, project manager at OHMSETT, located in the Leonardo section of Middletown, said today repairs on the 667-foot-long, 11-foot-deep wave tank are ongoing.

"It’s been since the end of May and we’ll be back up in mid-August," Quinney said. "The tank is made out of concrete and there are seals between the sections, and the seals are leaking. We had to take it down."

Asked whether the shut down has delayed or prevented testing of technologies needed for the BP spill, the Department of Interior said in a statement: "The OHMSETT facility is shut down for much needed maintenance and repair. The decision to do the repairs now was made only after checking with the Coast Guard and others to see if they anticipated using it during this period. We also have the ability to bring the facility back on line in several days if the tank is needed for testing to help the spill response effort."

The rectangle-shaped, salt-water tank in Leonardo simulates actual ocean conditions to test everything from chemical treating agents and dispersants to booms and skimmers. It was used a decade ago by researchers who tested the centrifuge technology in the design behind the 32 oil separation machines BP recently purchased from film star Kevin Costner to clean the oil contaminated water in the Gulf of Mexico.

Menendez said he learned the tank "has a hole" when he tried to tour the facility shortly after Salazar and Minerals Management Service officials repeatedly praised OHMSETT on June 9 during testimony before the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee, on which Menendez sits, and a subcommittee of the House Committee on Science and Technology.

During the House hearing, Sharon Buffington, chief of engineering and research at the Minerals Management Service hailed OHMSETT as "critical to oil spill response technology development" and "a vital component" of the MMS oil research program, although she said more spill research is needed.

OHMSETT was built and operated by the federal Environmental Protection Agency from 1973 until is was shut down in 1988 during budget cutbacks. It was re-opened in 1990 by the U.S. Navy after the 1989 Exxon Valdez spill renewed interest in the facility. It was put in control of the Interior’s Minerals Management Service, which oversaw a two-year renovation.